


The Return of Otto Linkmeyer

by DixieDale



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 05:29:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21230579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: "Otto?  You've returned?  NOW??!  This is not the best timing, you sweet fool!"Well, Gertrude Linkmeyer's beloved husband always HAD had the worst timing of anyone she knew!  Still, as long as she had been waiting for him to return, you would have thought he could have made it at a better moment.  Or was it SHE who was mistaking things?  Had Otto arrived at just the right moment, perhaps the PERFECT moment?





	The Return of Otto Linkmeyer

**Author's Note:**

> Gertrude Linkmeyer is, of course, the sister of General Albert Burkhalter.  
Otto Linkmeyer is her husband, listed as 'missing in action on the Russian Front'.
> 
> This bitter-sweet reunion takes place near the final days of the war.
> 
> Sometimes a happy ending just isn't in the cards, unless you are very flexible as to what constitutes a happy ending.

She knew when her brother, Albert Burkhalter, General Albert Burkhalter, didn't call. They had arranged that long ago, when they first made their plans, first joined in the fight within a fight. He had promised, without fail, that he would call after every meeting in Berlin, and those in his circle became used to that. "An invalid mother, you see."

She knew, and she knew what needed to be done. She'd prepared the bottle, the two glasses of schnapps and had them ready. She would not rush things, just in case there was some other explanation, but with the close link she had always had with Albert, she knew there was only one explanation.

She did wonder if he would have the privacy, the opportunity to loosen that cap on his rear tooth, take the easier death waiting within; she hoped so, for his sake. He HAD told her he had practiced before placing the tablet within the tooth, many a time. He'd even formed a habit of fiddling with the one in FRONT of that tooth, so that it would seem nothing out of the ordinary to any observers.

She though briefly about the others of the family, but knew there was nothing she could do for them. Many of them had close links to important people; perhaps that might prevail. They didn't know of what she and her brother had been doing, probably would never have believed it. Their mother certainly had not known, nor Albert's wife, Berta. They would either survive or not, most probably not, and nothing she could do would change their fate. Somehow she couldn't force herself to be as concerned for Berta as might have been expected.

Now, there was only their elderly mother to consider, and herself. Taking the glasses down to the first level, she tapped on the door and entered.

"Here, I brought you a glass of schnapps. Drink it down, mama."

Her mother gave her a suspicious look.

"Gertrude, it is not the time of day to be drinking schnapps."

Gertrude Linkmeyer looked her mother in the eye and for the first time in possibly her entire life, told her the hard truth.

"The Gestapo will be here very soon. The schnapps is not bitter, not nearly so bitter as what they will serve you."

Frau Burkhalter gaped.

"Whatever do you mean? What would the Gestapo want with me, with us? Your brother is a General, Gertrude!!!"

"My brother is many things, including a loyal German patriot, a patriot loyal to the Fatherland. However, the Gestapo, and the Fuhrer, obviously no longer think he is loyal to Hitler and the Reich, and truthfully so. I doubt Albert is still alive; if he is, it will not be for long."

She listened impatiently as the old woman protested and cried and wrung her arthritic hands.

"Mama, drink, now, as I intend to do. The stories we have heard are quite true, you know, the atrocities. Do not begin to hope we would be spared; there is no reason we would be. Drink."

And as if in a daze, Frau Burkhalter finally drank the glass of liquor. 

"Good, mama. Now, I will drink mine, and together we will wait."

Frau Burkhalter snapped at her daughter.

"Do not bother to keep me company! This was your doing, I am quite sure, leading him to betray the Fuhrer. You always were a rebellious girl, even to insisting on marrying that fool, Otto! Go! I don't need you!" she sputtered, even as her eyelids grew heavy and she unwillingly slid back onto the cushions of the daybed.

Gertrude Linkmeyer nodded. "As you wish, mama." She really had no wish to spend her last few minutes in this stifling room anyway, with the woman who had been even more stifling.

She hoped her mother had not been deceiving her, waiting only til she was out of the room before vomiting up the potion; however, that was no longer her responsibility. In any case, she intended to do her final duty, what she had promised Albert she would do.

Making her way carefully to the room where she'd lived since her Otto had gone away to war, she poured herself a glass from that same bottle, sipped it slowly, while studying the small device she had hidden away for so long. When she felt her eyelids start to drift shut, she carefully turned the dial to fifteen minutes. She dared wait no longer; who knew how long it would take the Gestapo to arrive? 

She smiled, wondering if they might actually be inside the house when the explosion went off. She found that a pleasant thought.

Now, relaxing on the small loveseat, she smiled at the picture of her beloved Otto that she held in her hand.

"Well, if you do make it back, my love, you will not find me here, I am afraid. I waited for you as long as I could, you know," she murmured.

And a rueful voice came from the figure now seated beside her, the figure of a pleasant-featured man in the same uniform he'd been wearing when he'd been sent away. 

"Yes, Gertruda, I know you did. And I came to you as soon as I was able."

She squinted up at that beloved face, "Otto? You've returned? NOW??! This is not the best timing, you sweet fool! It is all going up in flames, our lives, even the house!"

He gave that gentle laugh he'd always had for her alone. 

"I think it is perfect timing, my Gertruda. The Gestapo has just arrived and will be inside very soon. I think the timing is just perfect," glancing at the timer she held in her hand, watching that dial click down.

Her eyes widened, then she gave a small snort of amusement. 

"Will they be inside in time, do you think? I could scarcely hope for more, although I suppose it is too much to be expected that that idiot Hochstetter will be among them."

Otto shrugged ruefully, "no, not Hochstetter, but others of his sort. Come, to the window. We shall watch them force their way through that locked door, and listen for them bursting in like the barbarians they truly are."

She said regretfully, "yes, I would like that, but I am too tired, Otto. Oh so tired."

But then she realized she wasn't, not really. In fact, she wasn't tired at all, indeed, felt like the woman she had been when she'd first met her beloved. So she rose, laid her hand in her sweet Otto's, and watched from the window as the black uniforms rammed the door and swarmed into her family's house, heard the shouted orders, the trampling of boots on the stairs.

Glancing back at the loveseat, she wasn't surprised to see the form of a grey-haired woman slumped there - what remained of Gertrude Burkhalter Linkmeyer, aside from what was now held tightly within her Otto's arms.

"Six, five, four, three, two, one . . ." they counted down together, almost as if in preparation for counting down the arrival of the New Year.

Three, well, perhaps four things happened simultaneously:

.the Gestapo burst into her room

.the dial turned to zero

.Gertruda and Otto departed, destination unknown, but together at last.

.BOOOOM!!!!!!!!!

.


End file.
